Trump’s not attending because it’s clear he’s no longer a member of The Davos Crowd and Macron isn’t because any public appearance by him will double the number of people donning high visibility safety gear and taking to the streets.

It almost feels like we’ve reached Peak Davos, with these announcements. But, clearly neither of these men are invited because in the minds of The Davos Crowd they no longer figure in their long-term plans.

Macron not attending is also a sign his government will be sacrificed on the altar of the Yellow Vests in the near future.

All of the governments of Europe are broke. And the speed camera is simply another in a long line of instances of them trying to squeeze blood from the now impoverished and shrinking middle class.

The symbology of them smashing speed cameras and demanding their money from the banks cannot be clearer. When you take everything from someone, when he has nothing left to lose, he becomes free.

Free to strike the root, as we libertarians like to say. Go after not just the immediate source of your anger, but the root cause of it. Macron and his Prime Minister Edouard Philippe don’t have any other answer than to crack down harder.

The Wrong Brexit

It will not work. And, at some point the police will side with the people and that will be that. Macron’s disinvitation to Davos should surprise no one then.

But, France isn’t the only problem facing the EU at the moment. It is becoming clearer by the day that Theresa May has failed to secure a yes vote for her Brexit deal. And that the most likely outcome now is a no-deal, hard Brexit.

The kind of Brexit that is the stuff of nightmares for The Davos Crowd.

A hard Brexit will not be easy for anyone, but the alternatives are far worse in the long-run. May’s deal violates British sovereignty at a level that even EU membership doesn’t.

And that was the stated goal of the EU’s lack of negotiating all along, to scare any other uppity rabble in Italy, Spain, France, etc. that the EU is inevitable and eternal.

So, don’t even bother trying to beat us, because we are invincible.

But, they aren’t. From the beginning all the leverage was on the U.K.’s side in the Brexit talks. Theresa May, either through incompetence or complicity, refused to use that leverage. It was like watching Mitt Romney run for President against Obama and refusing to attack Obama for his horrific track record.

Why? Because Romney was working for the same team, in the end.

Davos-opoly

And that team is now staring at a full-scale revolt against the one parliamentary body that gives them legitimacy in the eyes of the world, that of the European Union’s.

It’s no secret that a large swatch of MEP’s are in the pay of George Soros. It’s no secret that they introduce legislation and formal rebukes to punish countries for not towing The Davos Crowd’s party line.

So, it is with great strategic and tactical acumen that Italy’s Matteo Salvini targeted May’s European Parliamentary elections as the rallying point for the Euroskeptic movement.

These three things — France, Brexit, May’s Elections — together represent a potential trifecta of suck for The Davos Crowd. Trump attending would add to their misery.

Given the situation do you think Trump would not delight in tweaking these fatuous oilgarchs mercilessly while there? It is one of the true pleasures of his presidency, even if the rest of it is a hot mess.

I’m truly sorry he’s not going.

But as I said the other day, the more these problems come into focus the higher the probability that these events will unnerve financial markets past the point of no return.

And given the fragile stability crafted by central banks over the last decade since Lehman Bros., it won’t take much in the current environment to tip that scale into full-blown panic.

That’s the lesson of the year-end weakness in stocks. We had a classic panic cycle out of risk-on assets (stocks) into risk-off assets (bonds and gold). The next phase of this will be a realignment of those categories as tangible assets become the preferred asset classes and debt is looked upon as worthless — because it is.

And those who truck in debt and endless financialization of everything will be the ones most exposed to the breakdown. And that’s what will be the hot topic of conversation this year at Davos.